I write about the Internet technologies and upstarts that are disrupting advertising and media faster than ever. I'm living this disruption, so I might as well write about it, too. I spent nine years as chief of BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau writing about the leading edge of technology and business, and I continue to do so for a variety of publications. Follow my posts here by clicking the "+ Follow" link under my name. You can also find me at my personal Web site RobHof.com, follow me on Twitter (robhof), Circle me on Google+, subscribe to me on Facebook, and email me (robert.hof@gmail.com).

12 Candidates to Become the Next Instagram

There’s no more excitement and hype in online media today than in mobile services and applications, all the more since Facebook just paid a billion bucks for the mobile photo sharing service Instagram. This morning at the venerable DEMO conference in Santa Clara, a group of Instagram wannabees presented to a ballroom full of investors and press.

These are my capsule summaries, followed by comments from two panels of venture capitalists and corporate investors.

Arqball: Anyone can create “spins,” interactive 3-D data sets, with their phone. You can take a photo/video of an object and then you can spin it around and otherwise manipulate it with swipes on your mobile device. It’s for people selling stuff to create much more compelling representations of their products.

XEOPlay: It’s debuting Tiltworld, an iPhone game where people donate to causes.

On the panel judging this first batch of startups were Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital; Jason Krikorian of DCM; Dan Scholnick of Trinity Ventures; Dana Stalder of Matrix Partners; and moderator Jolie O’Dell of VentureBeat.

On Arqball and TourWrist: Scholnick thinks this imaging is powerful, but the question is really what the business model is. They may be too complicated for consumers, so software may be the play. Gurley thinks TourWrist is visually stunning, though challenges for the business model as well. You might want to charge the real estate agent or homeowner or merchant for the service.

On Tiltworld: Stalder says the trick is competition for people’s time.

On Edamam: Gurley isn’t convinced recipes is the highest-value application of what he says is a different kind of search from Google‘s algorithms (parametric or taxonomy-based search).

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I am the Chairman of UppSite and wanted to say that what kromaner says is incorrect. This is true to the old version of UppSite. The version we are officially launching today works on WordPress.org, WordPress.com, WordPress VIP (we are the only mobile solution partner on the WordPress VIP Partners program), tumblr and blogger.

Some of these companies sound really cool, but do any of them really have ability to grow into the next Facebook? That was the threat posed by Instagram, and why it was able to command such a dizzying valuation. In 1999 it was all about eyeballs in 2012, it’s all about new user velocity.

Elise, that’s a good point. I think it’s almost impossible to tell this early, despite all of us in the blogosphere/press trying to do so. You can almost bet that each of these companies has a pivot or two to go before they settle on a compelling product, let alone a business model. It’s not impossible that one of these could turn into the next Instagram, but as always with startups, the odds are very low.